How to Draw Simple Gantt Charts

Updated on October 25, 2011

Gantt Chart Example | Source

Without the Complexities of Microsoft Project

Drawing simple Gantt charts is a problem faced by many people during there normal work. Although Gantt charts are a great way to manage many things it is mostly used by large companies and technology related businesses, because there are no simple easy to use tools to draw them. Gantt charts are great to visually show the timeline of any project and it is a shame that their are no simple tools that almost anyone can use without much effort and without prior knowledge of the software. However as the demand for such tools are rising we are now seeing some innovative new tools coming to the market. It is important to understand that this is not a problem faced by only project managers and higher management. Even if your a software engineer or a student there are many instances you need to come up with a project plan. And Gantt charts are the best way to present your project plan in a simple to understand way.

Gantt Chart Resource at Amazon

Problems with Traditional Gantt chart Tools

As mentioned above, although Gantt charts can be used to draw a timeline of almost anything they are used mostly by large companies and businesses. You either have to use a software like Microsoft Project, Microsoft Excel or you need to use a drawing tool to manually draw timelines etc.

Microsoft Project is a project management tool and does a great job at it. Drawing Gantt charts is only a feature in MS project. You have the capability to draw very detailed charts that are full of information but you need to enter lots of data and need to have some prior knowledge of the software to use them successfully. It is definitely not something easy to do, which is why many software engineers are annoyed with using it although they have access to the software.

Microsoft Excel doesn't have Gantt charts but you can use it to draw Gantt charts using the other charting software available to you. Since this is not a specialized software to draw them you need to have some expert knowledge to get the chart done correctly. Also it is very difficult to chance the chart once you created it because most are done thorough bar charts etc.

The complexity of using these software has led to the development of more easy to use tools.

Simple Gantt Chart Tools

As the need for simple software grows more and more companies have started creating simple to use Gantt chart drawing tools. The circumstances have also helped companies come up with innovative solutions.

The growth of the Internet is a big factor. More and more people are using web based applications and improvements in Flash and HTML5 have made it possible to deliver complex applications in an easy to use way. Companies like Creately, which has being creating diagramming tools for a while is the latest company to join the Gantt chart race.Their Gantt chart tools are easy to use and comes with collaboration facilities.

I think in the future more and more companies will come up with web based solutions to this problem.